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For he (Abraham) was looking for the city which has foundations, whose
architect and builder is God. Hebrews 11:10
Isaac, my son, and I were on a three-day
journey that started early in the morning. I took a donkey and
two of my young men with us. We also brought split wood for a
burnt offering. God had said to me, “Abraham!” And I had
said, “Here I am.” He had then said, ”Take now your son, your
only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah; and
offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which
I will tell you.”
I have never before experienced such a time as
those three days. My life flashed before me, and I marveled
over the many ways God had shown me His faithfulness. Oh, I
had shown some faith also, but it seemed to be so small and
imperfect by comparison. I remember being called from my home,
the city of Ur of the Chaldees. God had been so compelling, so
convincing, in His request: “Go forth from your country, and
from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which
I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will
bless you and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing;
and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I
will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be
blessed.” It was an overwhelming request, yet I found
assurance and sincerity in God’s voice, and I obeyed. So it
was also in this request to offer my only son.
I remember how I had faltered on an earlier
trip to Egypt. Thinking only of myself, I pretended that my
wife, Sarai, was my sister. Sarai was welcomed into Pharaoh’s
house, and to my chagrin God had to rescue her by placing a plague
on the house. Even worse, Pharaoh chastised me for the lie and
forced Sarai and me to leave. I learned that there are
shameful times when we are corrected by those who do not believe in
our God. Still He is faithful!
I have a nephew named Lot who is selfish and
has little thought of the Lord. He was a distraction that would try
to lead me away from my Lord. God was becoming far more
important than my blood relatives. His Spirit was becoming
more important than my emotions. So, when we realized that there was
not sufficient land for our herds to graze, I felt it was time for
us to separate. I gave him his choice of the rich valley of
the Jordan. I was left with the land of Canaan, but the Lord
was pleased and He said, ”for all the land which you see, I will
give it to you and to your descendants forever”. He also
mentioned that my descendants would be numbered as the dust of the
earth.
On another occasion, after defeating those who
had taken Lot captive, a mysterious person approached me. He
was Melchizedek, king of Salem, which means peace, and he brought me
bread and wine. To me he seemed to be without beginning or
end. His priesthood did not arise from any earthly mother or
father, and I thought that he could only have been the Son of God.
He was a priest of the most high, and I gladly gave him my tithe.
In my mind I knew he would be a priest forever.
I remember my fears about having no heirs.
Sarai and I were very old, beyond the age of producing a child.
The Lord had again come to me and said, “One who shall come forth
from your own body, he shall be your heir. Now look toward the
heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.
So shall your descendants be.” I believed! Oh, how I
believed this promise, and the Lord said that my belief would be
reckoned to me as righteousness. Little did I know then that I
would be reckless and unfaithful by trying to fulfill this promise
through my own efforts. Through it all God remained faithful
to His promise.
I vividly remember the ritual that God and I
shared with the sacrificed animals. My doubt had grown, and
God had chosen to seal His promise within me with a more dramatic
encounter. When I had asked how I would know that I could
possess the land, God asked for a three-year-old heifer, a
three-year-old female goat, and a three-year-old ram, a turtledove,
and a young pigeon. What a strange request! Being three years
old, they were mature animals. All but the birds were slain,
cut in two, and laid on two sides of a path. I had never seen
such a sight! Birds of prey tried to consume the sacrifice,
but I drove them off. A great terror descended upon me, and I
started to fall asleep. I recall God saying, “Know for certain
that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not
theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred
years”. He spoke of judging the nations that oppose me.
I was also promised a good old age, with peace and great substance.
I began to realize, as I passed into sleep,
that God had not forgotten the blood sacrifice. He had
performed this with Adam, and he was reminding me also that He is
satisfied by the shedding of blood. The birds of prey were
trying to destroy the sacrifice, which I came to realize God would
protect. This was so much for me to understand.
When I was fully awake, during the darkness of
the night, a smoking oven and a flaming torch passed along the path
between the carcasses. Shed blood was flowing along the path.
To me the smoking oven was like one that I had seen for the
purifying of metal. God was going to refine me and remove the
dross of my fleshly desires. The lamp reminded me of the Lord
Himself as the light of the world. Surely He was saying that He was
passing along the path that drained the blood from the sacrifices.
On that day our covenant was renewed. I thought again that I
would be forever faithful, but there was to be more unbelief on my
part. Through it all, God would remain faithful. Also, I
was to be continually haunted by God’s use of the number three.
Three sacrifices, three years old, and I on a three-day journey.
Sarai and I became anxious for a son and heir.
She, to my amazement, brought her maid, Hagar, to me with the offer
to take her for the mother of my child. In my flesh I was all
too willing. As I think back, temptations can be made so
overpowering, and yet I could have trusted in the Lord for the
escape. Instead, I trusted in myself, and later a son,
Ishmael, was born. God remained faithful, however, and He
blessed Hagar. Ishmael, He said, was to be a wild donkey of a
man with everyone against him. So how could he be my promised
heir? Why Lord, did I forsake you? I can only repent and
offer myself to You fully. Accept me as I am.
God again intervened. He said, “Walk
before Me and be blameless, and I will establish My covenant between
Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly. Your name shall no
longer be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham”. I
could bear it no longer, and I fell on my face. The name
Abraham meant, “father of a multitude”. How could this be? If
the covenant was to be kept, it would be because of God’s
faithfulness, not mine.
God again affirmed the covenant, and He went
further by changing Sarai’s name to Sarah, which means “princess”.
He promised a son by her, and his name was to be Isaac, which means
“laughter”. I could only laugh, for I was now 100 years old
and Sarah was 90. I had not learned that with God all things
are possible! When would I learn to close my mouth? To
further seal this promise, God sent three men to me by the oaks of
Mamre. In the heat of the day they came, and I offered them
water and washed their feet. Sarah prepared some cakes, and I
prepared a choice calf. As we ate, the men explained that
Sarah would have a son. She was listening at the tent door,
and she too laughed to herself. But the men heard her, and
said “Is anything to difficult for the Lord?” Sarah even
denied the laugh, but they saw through her fear, and said, “No, but
you did laugh.”
I can only learn through all of this that God
fully understands all of my weakness. Somehow He has chosen to
work through it, and in spite of my weakness His strength can be
presented as a gift to us.
There were other trials with my nephew, Lot.
Through it all, as I tried to reason with God, there came to me the
knowledge that He alone knows best. I had thought there would
be many righteous souls in Sodom. Surely, God would spare
them. Yet He was to show me, in spite of my presumed reasoning
powers and my attempts at achieving fair judgments, that all along
He knew there were only Lot and his family that could be spared.
His ways and understanding are beyond mine, and I must yield to Him.
Did I say yield to Him? Oh no, there was
to be another unfaithful step on my part. Not having learned
from my first denial of Sarah, I did it again with Abimelech, king
of Gerar. He took her, thinking she was my sister, into his
home. But again God found a way to spare her. He showed
far more love than I did. It seems only He knows true love.
Sarah conceived and our son was named Isaac.
Oh, how I loved him. Through him my descendents would be
numbered as the stars and sands. God had produced through me
the fulfillment of the covenant. This was in spite of my
weakness. Looking back over my one hundred years I could not
have experienced a more blessed time.
And then there was that voice from God. I
was to be tested. Did I love Isaac more than my God? Would I
be willing to sacrifice him? As I walked with Isaac over the
past three days, I thought of these things. I wanted to
discuss all of this with Isaac, but I was not certain he would
understand.
On the morning of the third day I looked ahead
and saw the place of the sacrifice in the distance. I had made
up my mind, and my resolve strengthened. There would be no
turning back. There would be no deceit or pretense that would
allow any escape. Certainly this was no time for laughter or
mocking at God’s command. I could not show fear or
uncertainty, if only for Isaac’s sake. I wanted to weep, but I held
it back. The smoking oven on the blood path had performed its
mission on my fleshly desires. I had learned obedience and
submission from God, and Isaac had learned from me.
I told the men with us that the lad and I would
go to worship and return. In my heart I knew that in some way
Isaac would be resurrected. I took the wood for the burnt
offering and laid it on Isaac and I took the knife and the fire.
Isaac said with wonder in his voice, “Behold, the fire and the wood,
but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” His voice
penetrated to my very soul. This was no time for faltering or doubt;
it was the time for faith. I answered, “God will provide for
Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” So we walked
on, side by side. How could I show Isaac my love, or for that
matter was there even time? As he looked at me I could only
see trust. Was it misplaced? My life was laid barren
before me. All that I had been or would be was at stake. I
grieved over all the times I had ignored my Lord. Would He
deny me now? My mind thought of the blood sacrifice that God
had made for Adam. It was as if all my faults and guilt
were now to be laid on Isaac. He was to bare the consequences
of all my sin. It seemed so unfair, but deep down I knew that God
was just. So I continued to think of God and realize
that He would be faithful.
The moment came. Isaac was tied and
placed on an altar that I had made. I raised the knife and
looked into the eyes of Isaac. It was to be now!
Isaac was still and calm. He had become a willing sacrifice.
Everything I had told about his birth and God’s promises must have
been on his mind. And then, that blessed voice came from an
angel of the Lord, “Abraham, Abraham.” And I said, “Here I
am.” And the angel said, ‘Do not stretch out your hand against
the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God,
since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”
I raised my eyes and saw a ram caught in the thicket by his horns.
God had provided the substitute! Isaac was spared. My
sins were not placed on Isaac, but on the ram.
Our travel had been for three days.
Again, the number three. It was as if Isaac had been
resurrected on the third day. What was God saying to me?
I called this place The Lord Will Provide
because God had told me the sacrifice would be provided. An
angel called to me from heaven, “By Myself I have sworn, declares
the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld
your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will
greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the
sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate
of their enemies. And in your seed all the nations of the
earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice."
As Isaac and I walked to Beersheba, I pondered
the wonderment of what had happened. We had passed the test.
A father could sacrifice his only son for the love of God. And
then I thought further; I remembered Melchizedek and the bread and
wine we shared. If God were to have an only son, would He be
willing to sacrifice that son for the love of man? As I
recalled the smoking oven on the blood path, the path that God
Himself had walked, I knew deep down in my heart that the answer was
“Yes”. When that Son comes He will reign in a city whose
foundation is built by God.
M. R. Seiler, November 16, 2003
Additional Reading
Genesis, chapters 12-22. Colossians 2:16-17.
Leviticus 1:7; 9:24. Isaiah 53:10. Hebrews 7: 1-17. John 3:16-17.
Romans 5:1-5. James 1: 2-4. Hebrews 11: 8-19. 2
Corinthians 12: 9. Jeremiah 34:18-20. |
